Get Ready for Jobster 3.0

If you’ve been in the industry for less than a decade, the name Jobster probably means nothing to you. If you’re an old guy like me, however, you remember a time when Jobster was the hottest startup recruiting had seen since Monster.

With a charismatic and abrasive founder, $50 million in funding, and a hipster-before-it-was-hip Seattle address, everyone was talking. Unfortunately, not many were buying though, and the company sold off to a relatively unknown company called Zapoint back in 2010. Some sweet search rankings and Indeed backfill click-dollars lasted for awhile, but the company changed course, rebranding as Tambora in 2016.

The new direction must’ve made the brand Jobster collateral damage, because a company called JobBird purchased the domain name for $200,000 in October, according to DNJournal.com. Popular domain auction site Sedo coordinated the sale.

JobBird who?

I said the same thing. The company is in the Netherlands, and at one point was doing quite well, apparently. As early as March 2018, the company had plans to expand elsewhere in Europe, then hitting the U.S. and Asia. Things haven’t quite worked out, however, as the company declared bankruptcy in December 2018.

Confusing, right? It gets more interesting. On December 19, 2018 JobBird was taken over by Young Capital. AIM Group’s Anastasia Gnezditskaia reports, “Young Capital has been searching for a jobs site to invest in for a while. It’s not yet clear whether JobBird’s 12 employees will stay or be partially let go.”

It also operates a few other job sites. Gnezditskaia says JobBird is a well-known brand in the Netherlands and isn’t likely to disappear. So where does Jobster come in?

On January 3, going to www.jobster.com unveiled the following message: “Jobster.com. Soon to be unleashed again, The jobster.com team.” As of this writing, however, the URL redirects users to JobBird, a bankrupt, recently taken-over company.

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Stay tuned for where this thing is going. Maybe Jobster will be the company’s foray into America, where the brand still has some awareness. It’s hard to believe anyone would drop $200,000 for a redirect, so bigger things must be in store, right?

For the new owner’s sake, I hope they have better luck than the previous two domain holders.

Joel Cheesman has over 20 years experience in the online recruitment space. He worked for both international and local job boards in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. In 2005, Cheesman founded HRSEO, a search engine marketing company for HR, as well as launching an award-winning industry blog called Cheezhead. He has been featured in Fast Company and US News and World Report. He sold his company in 2009 to Jobing.com. He was employed by EmployeeScreenIQ, a background check company. He is the founder of Ratedly, an app that monitors anonymous employee reviews. He is married and the father of three children. He lives in Indianapolis.